Recent improvements in the energy and power densities of power electronic switches are among the developments facilitating the deployment and operation of DC power systems. DC distribution systems have long been used in certain applications—such as in certain types of industrial plants—but they are finding new and expanded usage in a variety of fields, including shipboard power systems, photovoltaic, and other types of renewable energy generation systems.
While DC distribution systems offer a number of advantages in such contexts, including reductions in the amount or types of equipment needed for power generation and/or conversion and increased efficiency, they also offer a number of challenges. For example, it is recognized herein that challenges arise with respect to determining the location of faults in a DC distribution system. In one aspect of these challenges, steady-state fault currents in different branches and on different buses within radial DC distribution systems may be quite similar, as a consequence of low circuit impedances. Further, fault location techniques that rely on current derivatives are unreliable in DC distribution systems, because different branches experience different transient current waveforms, e.g., as a consequence of energy storage devices or other energy resources being present at various locations in the system and RLC differences among the branches.